Saturday, 15 September 2012

photo by FENIANHUGE CROWD MARCH IN DUBLIN TO FREE MARIAN PRICEReports are coming in of a huge turnout in Dublin today in the #FreeMarianPrice cmpaign. More to follow at a later date. Below is the latest from IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWS. .IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWShttp://republican-news.org

The 26 County police have carried out a wave of raids and arrests following a large IRA funeral in Dublin for Alan Ryan.

The funeral, which involved a traditional IRA guard of honour and saw shots fired over the coffin at his home, brought thousands of local people to pay their respects, as well as senior republicans of all shades.

The Clongriffin man is understood to have been a senior figure in the ('New' or 'Real') IRA.

A staunch opponent of drug dealers and criminal gangs in Dublin, the 32-year-old was gunned down in broad daylight last week yards from his home, evidently on the orders of the city's powerful crime bosses.

Questions were immediately raised as to the actions of the Garda police, who had placed Mr Ryan under continuous surveillance, but seemed to delay attending the scene of the cold-blooded assassination.

There were also allegations that Garda Special Branch, the 'intelligence police' who later attended the scene outside Mr Ryan's home, were seen to be celebrating his death.

The funeral on Saturday saw an uneasy stand-off between republicans and Garda riot police, who had sought to limit the funeral's IRA 'trappings'.

Following some negotiations, a gun salute did take place at Mr Ryan's home, while an honour guard which accompanied the funeral cortege processed along streets lined with black flags and tricolours.

Draped in the tricolour, the coffin was flanked by more than 200 supporters wearing the traditional republican uniform - a white shirt with black trousers and black tie. Hundreds more lined the road outside the church, where a traditional family funeral took place.

Mr Duffy also said that Ryan was under constant surveillance by "agents of the State", a reference to the Garda Special Branch. "But on the day of his death the agents of the State were conspicuous by their absence, which is highly suspicious," he said.

He also attacked Ireland's (mostly British owned) tabloid media, as 'gutter rats', and said they had smeared Mr Ryan both before and after his death.

However, the high level of public support shown for Mr Ryan appeared to take the 26 County authorities by surprise, resulting in the biggest such funeral in the city in decades, with significant media interest.

A subsequent radio interview on Tuesday between well-known chat show host Joe Duffy and a friend of Mr Ryan who escaped injury in the attack, fuelled the controversy.

Paul Stewart suggested the Garda Special Branch had colluded in the killing, and described how Special Branch members laughed and mocked 'the model' as Ryan lay dead, and another friend of his lay seriously injured on the side of the road. However, he said many ordinary Gardai had also expressed their support to the family and had had no problem with the funeral, which he said was "a fitting send-off" for Mr Ryan.

The clarity and apparent integrity of Stewart's responses to Duffy's questions increased concerns in the political establishment over the level of public support for 'dissidents', and provoked a reactionary response.

Minister Shatter attacked RTE, the state-owned broadcaster, for allowing the interview. Recalling the days of 'Section 31' censorship of Sinn Fein, he said: "Broadcasters should not give a platform to those engaged in subversive activities or their supporters."

The Garda arrest operation then began the following morning and by Thursday, 17 people were arrested in an operation which spanned Dublin and Leinster. Armed members of the Special Branch and the 'Emergency Response Unit' were involved in the raids, codenamed 'Operation Ambience', according to a Garda statement. Personal items such as cash and mobile phones were seized.

Among the homes raided were Mr Ryan's family home, where all of his brothers were arrested.

A supporter of the family lambasted the "Guardians of the Peace" [Garda Suiochana, the Gardai] for their heavy-handed actions. He said they "kicked in the door and held guns to the heads" of all members of the family.

"They tore the house apart manhandling Alan's three brothers. All this in front of his little nephew who is now totally traumatised," he said, adding that Mr Ryan's mother had 700 euros in cash taken from her.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement also condemned the "pointless and vindictive" arrests. It said the Garda investigation into the 32-year-old's murder was progressing with very much less urgency.

"Following the funeral of IRA volunteer Alan Ryan the media have demanded that there must be punishment for the republican funeral Alan received.

"Thousands lined the streets of Dublin and followed the funeral to pay their respects, they did so in a respectful, peaceful and dignified manner.

"This must now be contrasted with the petty harassment meted out to the Ryan family and friends of Alan by An Garda Suiochana.

"All of Alan's brothers have been arrested and their family home raided, denied the opportunity to grieve their brother by a police force which harassed him in life and is now using his death to continue this campaign against the Ryan family."

The arrests had "exposed the agenda" of the Gardai, the group said.

"Their complicity in Alan's murder through inaction or active collusion has been highlighted. Their response has been to try and attempt to intimidate those who were close to Alan into silence."

ADAMS BACKS GARDAI

The funeral has polarised Sinn Fein supporters and republicans in the capital. There were claims that the displays had been used by the breakaway IRA organisations, now regrouped, to publicly claim the mantle of the IRA. Sinn Fein insisted they did not have support of the local community.

Party President Gerry Adams condemned the activities of what he described as "groups involved in gangsterism and crime masquerading as the IRA". He said they had no place in Irish society, and welcomed the Garda crackdown.

"The [Provisional] IRA did the right thing on British resistance and when the peace process came forward," he said.

"Anybody who is a genuine republican should be about the process of building a genuine republic and not involved in these kinds of exercise which is not about republican struggle."

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>>>>>> DUP man to oversee Long Kesh 'redevelopment'

A member of the hardline unionist DUP is to take the helm of a body tasked with overseeing the conversion of the former site of Long Kesh prison, including the demolition of most or all of the world-famous H-Blocks.

The prison, known officially as HMP Maze, was a site of intense struggle at the height of the conflict in the north of Ireland. Ten hunger strikers, who died in a protest against criminalisation in 1981, were among thousands of political prisoners held there. Republicans were first interned in cages [compounds] on the site in 1971, when it was known as Long Kesh (Ceis Fada).

After the decision to close the prison was taken in 2000, there were calls for it to be preserved in its entirety as a world heritage site,.

Terence Brannigan, who is a senior DUP member, was announced this week as the chairman of the 'Maze/Long Kesh Development Corporation'.

But in a press release announcing the appointment, Mr Brannigen is listed as having declared no political activity, for reasons which remain unclear.

Plans for the development currently include, an office, hotel and leisure village, an agricultural society and a 'conflict transformation centre' including the prison's former hospital ward.

A proposal for a 300 million pound multi-sports stadium at the site was abandoned in 2009.

When asked about Mr Brannigan's links to the DUP, Sinn Fein's Mr McGuinness said he was satisfied with the appointment and dismissed nationalist concerns.

"It's not an issue for me at all. I'm actually very relaxed about it and I don't see why other people are getting energised about it," he said.

"What we have to satisfy ourselves when we make these appointments is whether or not the people we appoint to these positions understand the economic, historical and reconciliation potential of the site."

Mr McGuinness said redevelopment of the site would show how the north "has been transformed and regenerated in moving beyond conflict".

Development of the site has been slow, mainly due to unionist opposition to the retention of the former hospital ward where the hunger strikers died.

DUP First Minister Peter Robinson said the Stormont administration was determined that the centre would not become a republican "shrine".

"All sensible people will recognise that we've committed ourselves at every level, that there will be no shrine at the Maze," he said.

He said administrators would "maximise the economic development potential of this valuable regeneration site".

Mr Brannigan said he did not declare his DUP membership when he applied for the post because he was only asked if he had ever canvassed for a political party. He said he would have happily declared his membership, if he had been asked.

The Commissioner for Public Appointments in the north criticised the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) for breaching a code of practice.

Commissioner John Keanie said they had failed to comply with the code on a number of points, including not having named the political parties to which several board members have links.

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>>>>>> No sign of Covenant march talks

No consultations have yet taken place with residents of a nationalist area which 20,000 members of the anti-Catholic Orange Order and thousands more supporters are due to parade past later this month.

Tensions have been high in the area of north Belfast since loyalists breached Parades Commission determinations and played sectarian music while passing a Catholic church in August.

Violence also erupted earlier this month when loyalist rioters clashed with the PSNI in the wake of a republican commemoration in the area.

The Royal Black Institution, closely linked to the Orange Order, has since apologised to the clergy and parishioners of St Patrick's Church on Donegall Street for offence caused during its 'Last Saturday' march.

Unionists have also claimed that "quiet conversations" are ongoing in an attempt to defuse the situation ahead of the giant Ulster Covenant centenary parade on September 29.

The parade, to mark the anniversary of the first declaration of loyalist militancy in the north of Ireland, is planned to be the largest seen in the North for decades.

However, nationalist residents spokesman Frank Dempsey said any hope that mediation would take place ahead of the march was "fading fast". The Carrick Hill spokesman said tensions remain high in the area and talks between all parties, including residents, were essential to finding a resolution.

Residents have lodged an application with the Parades Commission to hold a protest at the top of Donegall Street on the morning of September 29. They will also meet with the commission next week to make submissions on concerns about the parade.

"After the Black Preceptory apology people seem to think that there are behind-the-scenes talks going on that involve residents.

"However, that couldn't be further from the truth as to date -- and despite us putting the invitation out through a third party -- no-one from the Orange Orders or any of the Unionist political parties has contacted us.

"We have not received so much as a phone call."

Mr Dempsey added that the intended route of the parade, marking 100 years since the signing of the Ulster Covenant, impacted on a significant number of residents who live in the area.

An attempt by loyalist hardliners to elevate tensions by applying for permission for a Covenant 'feeder' parade past the nationalist Ardoyne area has since been withdrawn, reportedly following a 'high level' intervention by senior Orangemen.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Conor Maskey warned that the 'loyal orders' may be engaging in a PR exercise.

"The Loyal Orders are saying that conversations 'are taking place away from the public gaze' and as it is not with the residents, who is it that they are talking to?" he asked.

McCAUSLAND MOTION

Meanwhile, a motion of no confidence in DUP minister Nelson McCausland over his comments on sectarian parades may yet gain the necessary support at the Stormont Assembly.

McCausland, a DUP hardliner, backed the illegal march by loyalists past St Patrick's church. The march, which involved scores of gestures and acts of sectarian abuse, was described as an act of "civil disobedience" by the controversial Minister.

The leader of the small nationalist SDLP party, Dr Alasdair McDonnell, said he was waiting for confirmation from Sinn Fein and the Alliance Party ahead of Tuesday's vote, which nationalists have said could mark a turning point in Stormont's approach to the parades issue.

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>>>>>> Court finds British Army interrogations were illegal

Hundreds of people could be in line for compensation after a British military document revealed that the British army continued to interrogate suspects it had captured, despite being banned from doing so.

The document, contained in a confidential file, was uncovered during the appeal of Liam Holden, the last man in Ireland to be sentenced to death by the British authorities.

Mr Holden was 19 when he was convicted of a British soldier's murder in 1972 after signing a confession under duress and being subjected to 'waterboarding' -- a torture technique -- in British hands.

The father-of-two later had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, but he spent 17 years in jail.

Earlier this summer, the Court of Appeal quashed Mr Holden's conviction on the grounds that his arrest by British soldiers was unlawful.

However, Britain continued to resist the release of details of the secret 'blue card rules'. Following a High Court challenge by human rights lawyer Patricia Coyle, the British MoD [Ministry of Defence] has finally agreed to make public the military rules of arrest.

The directive was issued to all members of the military in May 1972 after the then attorney general said that holding people in military detention to obtain intelligence, "as appears sometimes to have been the practice, was certainly outside the law".

The British army was told to hand suspects over to the RUC police at the earliest opportunity and to question them only to establish the identity of the person under arrest.

SUFFOCATED

Mr Holden said he was working as a chef when he was taken from his home and brought to the British Army barracks.

"By the time they were finished with me I would have admitted to killing JFK," he said.

He was subjected to sustained torture and then threatened that he would be shot if he did not confess to the killing.

"I was beaten and they told me to admit I had shot the soldier, but I said that wasn't true because I didn't," he said.

"Then six soldiers came into the cubicle where I was being held and grabbed me.

"They held me down on the floor and one of them placed a towel over my face, and they got water and they started pouring the water through the towel all round my face, very slowly.

"After a while you can't get your breath but you still try to get your breath, so when you were trying to breathe in through your mouth you are sucking the water in, and if you try to breathe in through your nose, you are sniffing the water in.

"It was continual, a slow process, and at the end of it you basically feel like you are suffocating."

Mr Holden said he eventually 'confessed' after he was threatened with being shot.

FOUR HOURS

Ms Coyle, of Harte Coyle Collins solicitors, said the release of the previously confidential information could open the door for anyone held in military custody for more than four hours after May 1972, to sue the British government.

"It is quite astonishing that it has taken almost 40 years for the 'blue card rules' and army directives underpinning the rules to become public," she said.

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>>>>>> Failed attempt to recruit Newry man

Covert undercover British operatives are actively spying on eirigi's Newry spokesperson Stephen Murney, it has emerged.

A neighbour of Mr Murney's came forward to eirigi to make it known that he had been approached by plain clothed security force personnel who tried to recruit him to work for them in gathering information on Stephen.

The approach began weeks ago, when the victim, a family man, had to attend a PSNI barracks over a family matter, during which he had to provide his name and address.

Shortly afterwards the man had an early morning visit to his home by the PSNI, accompanied by plain clothed personnel, who didn't identify themselves. They claimed to be investigating a burglary in a nearby cul-de-sac -- but rather than make enquiries about the alleged burglary, they pressed the man to answer a number of unrelated personal questions.

These questions immediately raised suspicions and the victim asked if they would also be calling to the rest of the houses in the street. They said they would, but after leaving his house, they immediately got into their vehicles and drove off.

It later emerged that there was no burglary as stated by the PSNI, and that his was the only house visited in the street.

"It now seems this was an initial attempt to 'suss out' the individual before the next step in the process, which took place a few weeks later," said eirigi, in a statement.

It said the man was walking down Hill Street in Newry when he was approached by a plain-clothed individual, who was aware of his previous interaction with the PSNI.

This unidentified individual then began questioning the victim about Mr Murney, who lives close to him. The target was asked if he had any information that he would like to pass on and quizzed about Murney's activities -- before being finally being asked to spy on the prominent activist and gather information for them.

He refused -- but the agent then menacingly made it known that he knew the victim had been speaking to Murney in a city centre establishment a few weeks beforehand.

"This would further confirm that the eirigi activist has already been placed under surveillance by state forces," said eirigi's Runai Ginearalta, Breandan Mac Cionnaith.

"Stephen's neighbour is to be commended for coming forward and making it known that these shadowy forces, unsuccessfully, attempted to pressurise him into gathering information on a member of an open political party.

"I have spoken with the man to whom these approaches were made and it's clear that he was clearly unsettled by this whole episode.

"Stephen Murney is openly and actively engaged in legitimate political activities and in helping the community in Derrybeg and other parts of Newry. Like all members of our party, Stephen has nothing to hide. These cowardly sinister forces on the other hand are working in the shadows under cover and out of sight to target him and others."

Mr Mac Cionnaith said the approach had been recorded with the Committee on the Administration of Justice [CAJ] and the victim's legal representatives.

"I would urge anyone who is approached in this manner, regardless of whether the approach is made by PSNI, MI5 operatives or both, to come forward and expose their ominous activities."

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>>>>>> Legal actions continue against PSNI bid to seize interviews

The case of the Boston College IRA tapes is to go before the US Supreme Court as the British authorities continue their efforts to investigate those allegedly named in the interviews as IRA members.

The 'confidential' interviews were carried out with former republican and loyalist figures as part of a history project for Boston College. Last year, the PSNI sought access to the tapes in connection with historical actions by the Provisional IRA.

One of the interviews was with former political prisoner Dolours Price. It is alleged she may have made potentially prosecutable statements in regard to the death of Jean McConville, who was killed by the IRA in 1972 as an informer.

Lawyers are appealing the decision to hand over the tapes to the PSNI in both the US and in the north of Ireland.

Journalists Ed Moloney and Anthony Mr McIntyre have applied to the US First Circuit Court of Appeal for a rehearing of the case, but this was rejected last month.

The men said they would now apply for a hearing at the US Supreme Court because the case "addresses issues of major constitutional importance" for Americans.

They said the PSNI had applied for access to the interview transcripts under the terms of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the US and Britain.

In a joint statement, the men said their lawyers would argue that "the MLAT bestows upon the PSNI greater powers in relation to the serving of subpoenas in the US than could be exercised by, for instance, the FBI.

"US citizens could challenge a subpoena served by the FBI on First and Fifth Amendment grounds but are precluded from doing so in the case of subpoenas served by foreign powers under an MLAT."

They added that 62 countries have signed MLATs with the US, and said some of them had "poor human rights records".

Boston College is also appealing against the decision to hand over the tapes in the US, but separately from the two men.

Commentators have said the best hope of safeguarding the peace process archive (and academic confidentiality) rests with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Several members of Congress -- including Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate's powerful foreign relations committee -- have called on her to persuade Britain to withdraw its Boston College subpoena. However, Clinton hasn't yet made any public pronouncements on the case.

Meanwhile, a third legal action, which is currently underway in Belfast, is also becoming controversial.

Speaking out today [Friday], Moloney denied Ms Price had even mentioned McConville in her interview.

"Dolours Price did not once mention the name Jean McConville," he said. "The subject of that unfortunate woman's disappearance is not even mentioned. Not once," the New York-based journalist said in a statement.

"Neither are the allegations that Dolours Price was involved in any other disappearance carried out by the IRA in Belfast, nor that she received orders to disappear people from Gerry Adams or any other IRA figure," he added.

"None of this is in her interviews with Anthony McIntyre."

Last week, the Belfast High Court granted a temporary injunction to prevent the PSNI from receiving the taped interviews until the conclusion of the legal challenge there.

However, supporters of McIntyre and Moloney fear the tapes could still be handed over following any adverse ruling in either Belfast or Boston.

Moloney's full and detailed statement is carried below.

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>>>>>> Feature: 'BC Subpoenas caused by lies and PSNI failings'

----------------------------------------------------------------- The following statement was issued today [Friday] by Ed Moloney, the former director of Boston College's Belfast Project, in regard to the PSNI's attempt to access the project's confidential interviews. -----------------------------------------------------------------

When the US government served subpoenas on Boston College's Belfast Project archive in May 2011 on behalf of the PSNI, the subsequent legal challenge was led by Boston College and the strategy was decided by the College's leaders in consultation with their lawyers. These were not our lawyers, nor our strategy.

Eventually, dissatisfaction with the Boston College strategy persuaded us to break from them and to hire our own attorneys, Eamonn Dornan and Jim Cotter and to devise our own strategy in consultation with them. We had important, perhaps decisive things to say but we needed to say them in a court of law where we had a chance of overturning the subpoenas.

We had been trying to get the go-ahead from a US court to intervene at which point we could make these arguments public during a decisive hearing in an American court. So far we have not succeeded. Now that there is a possibility of a Judicial Review being held in Belfast we believe that this moment has come. Accordingly, I have sworn an affidavit for the Belfast court this morning summarizing the essential facts and my statement below goes into far more detail.

BOSTON COLLEGE SUBPOENA WAS BASED ON A JOURNALIST'S LIE & PSNI FAILINGS

When this research project at Boston College (BC) began we gave interviewees a pledge that nothing of what they said would be revealed until their deaths. I intend to keep that promise.

But the pledge did not cover what the interviewees did not say.

I now wish to make the following facts public: in her interviews with BC researcher, Anthony McIntyre, Dolours Price did not once mention the name Jean McConville. The subject of that unfortunate woman's disappearance is not even mentioned. Not once. Neither are the allegations that Dolours Price was involved in any other disappearance carried out by the IRA in Belfast, nor that she received orders to disappear people from Gerry Adams or any other IRA figure. None of this is in her interviews with Anthony McIntyre.

The subpoena served in May 2011 by the US government on behalf of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) seeking her interviews, which was followed in August by other subpoenas seeking more interviews from the BC archive, was based upon a false newspaper report in Northern Ireland published in February 2010 alleging that she had talked about the disappearance of Jean McConville to Anthony McIntyre for the BC project.

The McIntyre-Price-BC interviews are the wellspring for this extensive legal action carried out by the British and American governments, a legal action that could do irreparable harm to the peace process in Northern Ireland, irretrievably reduce academic and media freedoms in the United States and imperil the lives of researchers and interviewees alike.

In this document I will provide evidence to show that the PSNI failed in its basic duty of establishing the reliability and credibility of the false newspaper report until fifteen months after the article had appeared and after the subpoenas had been served on BC. There is a responsibility on a police force in such circumstances to seek evidence firstly from the sources that are nearest to hand, what the American legal system calls "the least sensitive source". This the PSNI did not do.

I will show that the PSNI moved to check the newspaper material or gather evidence only after I had placed on legal record with the District Court in Boston my belief that the basis for the subpoena was flawed and that the taped interview referred to was not from BC but was made by the Belfast daily newspaper, The Irish News. The evidence I now present establishes beyond any doubt that the first subpoena was deeply flawed.

The United States Department of Justice presumably believed that the PSNI had carried out due diligence before embarking on the subpoena route but in that respect it was either mistaken or misled. This was an egregious abuse by the PSNI of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the US and the UK which facilitated these subpoenas. Under the terms of the MLAT, myself and Anthony McIntyre were barred from opposing the action in court. This abuse of the MLAT by the PSNI demonstrates beyond peradventure the need for Congress to urgently rewrite these treaties to prevent a future similar injustice.

I will now describe the background to the false newspaper article that began this legal nightmare.

THE IRISH NEWS - THE SUNDAY LIFE

The newspaper report that began the saga of the BC subpoenas appeared in The Sunday Life, a popular tabloid circulated in Northern Ireland, on February 21st, 2010 under the by-line of Ciaran Barnes. The report, splashed on the front page and continued inside, alleged that Dolours Price had been involved in the McConville disappearance and several other similar events and had admitted all this in a tape recorded interview.

The article went on to claim that Dolours Price had given taped interviews to what Barnes called "Boston University" and he told his readers that he had heard tape recordings in which Dolours Price confessed her role. The piece was written in such a way as to lead the average reader to conclude that she had made these admissions on tape to BC and that Ciaran Barnes had listened to them; this assumption was subsequently shared by the PSNI and the US Department of Justice.

To quote Ciaran Barnes' report: "Price recently gave a series of interviews to academics from Boston University (sic) about her role in the IRA. These include admissions about her role in transporting some of the disappeared to their deaths. The interviews were given on the basis that they will not be published until after her death", and "Price, who has made taped confessions of her role in the abductions to academics at Boston University, will relay this information to Independent Commission for Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) investigators later this week". And also: "Sunday Life has heard tape recordings made by Price in which she details the allegations against Adams and confesses her own involvement in a series of murders and secret burials".

Ciaran Barnes' report featured centrally in the US government's defence of the subpoenas when the action was challenged in the Federal District Court by BC. Here is what the US Attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz had to say in her July 2011 submission: "Ms Price's interviews by BC were the subjects of news reports published in Northern Ireland in 2010, in which Ms Price admitted her involvement in the murder and "disappearances" of at least four persons which the IRA targeted: Jean McConville, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee. See Exhibits 1 and 2. Moreover, according to one news report, the reporter was permitted to listen to portions of Ms Price's BC interviews."

In other words the official US Government stance was that The Sunday Life reporter, Ciaran Barnes had listened to Dolours Price's interview with BC and had heard her confessing to the disappearance of Jean McConville and others. Presumably this is what the PSNI told the US government and presumably the US government believed it. The subpoenas served against BC were therefore justified, the US government argued.

The truth is that the interviews that Anthony McIntyre conducted with Dolours Price are notable for the absence of any material that could ever have justified the subpoenas. In this respect it is worth remembering that when she was interviewed by McIntyre, Dolours Price was given the same confidentiality assurances as other interviewees, which was that whatever she said would not be revealed until her death. As the interviews with Brendan Hughes, later published in the book Voices From The Grave, graphically demonstrate this enabled interviewees to speak freely, fully and candidly and to talk honestly about their lives in the IRA.

(Incidentally all this nails the lie that the Belfast Project was established to "Get Gerry Adams" as people like Niall O'Dowd and Danny Morrison have alleged. As this episode demonstrates, no interviewees were ever put under pressure to implicate him or anyone else in IRA activity.)

So what was the genesis of Ciaran Barnes' shocking misreporting?

Three days before his report appeared, on February 18th 2010, The Irish News, Northern Ireland's daily Nationalist newspaper, published a lengthy series of articles based on an interview with Dolours Price conducted in Dublin earlier that week by one of the paper's senior reporters, Allison Morris. The front page lead carried the headline: "Dolours Price's trauma over IRA disappeared". The interview was tape recorded and it has been my consistent belief throughout this affair that the tape recording that Ciaran Barnes listened to and upon which he based his Sunday Life article was Allison Morris' tape. It certainly could not have been BC's.

Some background is needed here. When Dolours Price's family heard that she had given an interview to Allison Morris they were alarmed. She had a history of psychiatric problems and substance abuse. She has been diagnosed with PTSD, had been hospitalized repeatedly and was taking strong psychotropic drugs. Indeed on the day she spoke to Morris she was on day leave from St Patrick's Psychiatric Hospital in Dublin. Her family believed that in her mental state, and because of her anger over Gerry Adams' disavowal of the IRA, she was capable of saying literally anything and getting herself into undeserved trouble.

To cut a long story short the family intervened with the editor of The Irish News, Noel Doran and as a consequence the resulting story published by Doran was very restrained. There were no direct quotes from her and in relation to Jean McConville, the Irish News had just this to say: "Ms Price is also said to have been privy to details of the final days of mother-of-ten Jean McConville, whose remains have already been recovered", and "She is believed to possess previously undisclosed information about at least four Disappeared victims."

Most crucially of all, the Irish News couched its report in the context of Dolours Price taking the story of what she allegedly knew about the "disappeared" to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR), a body set up under the aegis of the peace process to deal with the vexed and troubling issue of victims 'disappeared' by the IRA. That was crucial because the ICLVR bestows immunity from prosecution and so Dolours Price would not be subjected to criminal prosecution as a result of anything she told the Commission. And The Irish News was careful not to implicate her directly in any criminal offence.

I would like to place on record my belief is that the editor of The Irish News, Noel Doran behaved properly in all this. But sadly, the same cannot be said for his reporter Allison Morris.

All would have been fine and I would not now be writing this statement and the courts in two jurisdictions would not have had their time taken up with the case of the BC subpoenas but for the fact that three days later, The Sunday Life took the story a stage further, adding garish and gruesome detail to The Irish News story and seemingly citing the BC interviews as the source for the story.

The immediate effect of Ciaran Barnes' reportage was to make the immunity deal arranged by Noel Doran and the ICLVR redundant. Dolours Price could not be prosecuted for what she told the commission but she could face charges over what Ciaran Barnes' claimed she had told BC.

So why do I believe that Ciaran Barnes got his story from Allison Morris?

Well, first of all it could not have come from Anthony McIntyre's interview with Dolours Price because it does not mention Jean McConville at all nor any of the other people disappeared by the IRA at the same time. So the idea that Barnes listened to the BC tape and used it as a source for his story is a sheer impossibility.

Barnes does however say very distinctly that he did listen to "tape recordings made by Price" admitting to the Jean McConville and other disappearances. So a tape did exist. So whose tape was it? I believe it was Allison Morris' tape not least because Irish News editor Noel Doran admitted that Morris had taped Dolours Price in the course of a lengthy debate with myself carried out in the columns of the Irish-American website, TheWildGeese.com during 2011. (Source:http://thewildgeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/moloney-vs-irish-news-final -word.html )

He wrote: "As I have pointed out, Moloney himself could have solved this 'mystery' through one simple telephone call. We would have been happy to tell him that PSNI detectives did attempt to obtain the Irish News tape but were informed that we were no longer in possession of any such material." (More about this further down)

So there was a tape of the Dolours Price interview. Given that we don't know of any other interview that Dolours Price gave and that her interview with Anthony McIntyre made no mention of the material that made up the bulk of Ciaran Barnes' report, suspicion must inevitably fall on Allison Morris as being the source. Barnes had to be quoting from Allison Morris' tape because there was no other tape.

There were no quotes from Dolours Price in the Irish News report of her interview with Allison Morris and that was understandable, given the deal that had been struck between her family and the paper's editor. But why no quotes in the Ciaran Barnes' article? After all he had seemingly gotten access to a sensational exclusive, a tape recorded interview made by a respectable and credible American college revealing the background to one of the Troubles' most notorious killings, so why not use direct quotes from the interview to substantiate and add credibility to his story. It is what nearly every journalist I know would do, and certainly what a reputable reporter would do. Nor was he restrained by any deal made by his source or the source's family with his editor. But he didn't. So why not?

Well put yourself in Ciaran Barnes' shoes. He thinks he knows Dolours Price has given interviews to BC and he guesses that she must have covered the same ground as Allison Morris did, although he can't know that for certain. But if he uses quotes from the Morris interview and pretends they came from BC then it will be a simple matter to prove he is lying by comparing the Boston interview with the quotes he publishes. If they don't match then he is caught with his pants down. And once found out he and his paper could face legal retribution from one of America's wealthiest colleges. Not a nice prospect; so far better to use no quotes.

The effect of The Sunday Life story was to add lustre and credibility to Allison Morris' scoop and not long after the two stories appeared, Allison Morris won two prestigious journalistic prizes, the National Union of Journalists' Regional Journalist of the Year and a similar award from the Society of British Regional Editors. For each prize she submitted a three-article portfolio, one of which was her interview with Dolours Price. Now regarded as one of The Irish News' star reporters, Allison Morris and Ciaran Barnes have come a long way since they both worked together and became friends in the west Belfast weekly, The Andersonstown News.

THE PSNI AND THE DUE DILIGENCE FAILURE

As I was putting the pieces of this story together the Leveson Inquiry had begun hearing evidence about the hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch's News International and I wrote a detailed email to Lord Leveson's team asking that this episode be included in his investigation. I did so after taking legal advice and because his inquiry encompassed both the questionable practices of some journalists and the relationship between the media and the police.

Unfortunately, this was not possible; the Leveson team told me that the appropriate place for hearings into "who did what to whom" would be in Part Two of his Inquiry which will happen if and when police investigations and criminal prosecutions have taken place. So maybe on another day the behaviour of Ciaran Barnes and Allison Morris will come under proper scrutiny.

Aside from being an egregious case of media misbehavior, the reason I wanted Leveson to have a look at the Sunday Life-Irish News case was that the PSNI had seemingly made no effort to locate relevant material right on their doorstep - that is the Irish News interview with Dolours Price and the "tape" that Ciaran Barnes had claimed to have listened to. Instead they had ignored these local sources and opted instead to seek their evidence 3,000 miles away in Boston. Why?

In my June 2011 affidavit I made it clear that I believed that Dolours Price's interview with Allison Morris had been taped and that the tape had been passed on to Ciaran Barnes in The Sunday Life. And I added that there was no way that Ciaran Barnes could have heard her BC interview. Without spelling out the reality that Dolours Price had not talked about Jean McConville in her interviews with Anthony McIntyre, my affidavit clearly said that the basis of the subpoenas was flawed.

When The Boston Globe published an editorial urging the college to hand over the tapes I emailed Tom Hachey, the head of the Irish Studies Center and the man in charge of the archive, asking if he or someone else from the college would respond. He did not reply, so myself and Anthony McIntyre asked The Boston Globe for the right to reply which they granted.

Our article, published on August 23rd, 2011 had this to say, inter alia: "The subpoenas that have been served are based on an unproven assertion: that an interview given to the college by a former Irish Republican Army activist, Dolours Price, could shed light on a 40-year-old murder and should be surrendered.

"The truth, however, is that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), on whose behalf US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz is acting, does not know what Dolours Price told BC's interviewers. Neither does Ortiz.

"They do not know because the legal basis for the subpoenas is deeply flawed, the result of either rank incompetence or sleight of hand. The authorities have justified the action by claiming that an interview with Price published in a Belfast newspaper in February 2010 about the murder was derived from her BC interview, when in fact it was based on a separate taped interview given directly to the newspaper. Price's interviews have never been released by BC and never would be - because a guarantee of confidentiality was given to every interviewee.

"What is happening is essentially an unwarranted fishing expedition into the college archives."

It must be clear to the reader now why we wrote those words.

But the question remains, why had the PSNI not gone straight away to the source of those two stories in the Irish News and Sunday Life as soon as they were published? When I was subpoenaed in 1999 by Scotland Yard over the Billy Stobie case because of an article I wrote, the subpoena was served within days of publication. When Suzanne Breen was subpoenaed following an interview she had with the Real IRA, again it was served within days. But after the Irish News and Sunday Life articles appeared nothing happened and the PSNI sat on their hands.

Let me be clear about one thing. While I utterly abhor the behavior of Allison Morris and Ciaran Barnes, I am not for one moment suggesting that The Irish News or Sunday Life should take our place in this awful legal ordeal. I would not wish that on anyone. I do not believe the police should have the right to demand any media material and I have long advocated for a shield law to protect the media. And had those two newspapers found themselves in our place I am sure they would have resisted and fought for confidentiality. In those circumstances I would have volunteered my support for them.

What concerns me here is the behavior of the PSNI and the question of why they did not seek material nearer at hand than Boston College?

It has been suggested that one reason is that the PSNI, battling for support from a suspicious Catholic community in the troubled wake of the peace process, is unwilling to confront and embarrass Northern Ireland's largest Nationalist daily newspaper. Some have argued that this explains why the PSNI served subpoenas on Suzanne Breen when she wrote about dissident IRA matters but ignored Allison Morris when she wrote in a similar vein. I do not know if this explains why the PSNI went to BC rather than to The Irish News but it is an intriguing question.

So what did the PSNI ever do about checking the veracity of the Irish News and Sunday Life articles and tracing their sources? Well, we know from Irish News editor Noel Doran's article in TheWildGeese.com that, as he put it: "..... PSNI detectives did attempt to obtain the Irish News tape but were informed that we were no longer in possession of any such material".

But the crucial question is when did that happen? Surely, if the PSNI was up to scratch, it had to be not long after the articles appeared? The answer was provided by none other than Allison Morris who wrote in the Irish News on October 19th, 2011 the following: "Moloney has suggested there is some sort of mystery as to whether the PSNI has attempted to obtain material from the Irish News. In fact the Irish News was approached by the PSNI in June this year. The police were informed I had not retained any material in relation to my discussion with Ms Price and had nothing further to add to what had appeared in the Irish News in February 2010."

Two things jump out from Morris' article and both raise serious questions about the PSNI's Crime Branch, currently led by Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris, which is in charge of the Dolours Price investigation. The first is that the PSNI waited until June 2011, before it got round to checking with the Irish News about the paper's interview with a person who is allegedly at the centre of one of Northern Ireland's most notorious killings and the subject of an unprecedented transatlantic legal action. The Irish News interview appeared in February 2010, PSNI detectives eventually tracked down the newspaper in June 2011. That is a gap of fifteen months. Fifteen months!

The other is the date, June 2011. What else happened in June 2011? Well one thing that did happen that month was that my affidavit, setting out the claim that the Sunday Life article was based on the Irish News' taped interview with Dolours Price was lodged with the District Court in Boston and made available to the PSNI's ally in this affair, the US Attorney's office. Now it may be that a little bird landed on Drew Harris' shoulder and whispered into his ear that he better send some of his guys round to the Irish News but I'd bet the mortgage that it was my affidavit landing on his desk c/o the US Attorney that sent detectives scurrying to Allison Morris' desk. In impolite circles this is called 'Covering Your Arse'.

While we do not yet know whether the PSNI ever got round to talking to Ciaran Barnes about his sources there are really only two conclusions possible about the PSNI's handling of this matter. One is that its Crime Branch is seriously incompetent. The other is that something more sinister is going on. I could speculate about what this could be but I won't. But it ought to be investigated by someone. This was the reason I tried to refer all this to the Leveson inquiry. Either way the PSNI's handling of the matter suggests that something is very seriously amiss in its Crime Branch.

BOSTON COLLEGE REDUX

Throughout the last year or so of legal struggle myself and Anthony McIntyre knew full well that in her interviews as part of the Belfast Project, Dolours Price had made no mention of Jean McConville or her disappearance. But we were not alone. BC also knew this. The academics and administrators there knew that when Ciaran Barnes suggested that she had implicated herself in the McConville disappearance in her interviews with McIntyre that this was complete rubbish and possibly deliberate lies.

In such disgraceful circumstances the claim that she had also admitted giving interviews to BC ought to have been treated with skepticism and at the very least Dolours Price should have been given the benefit of the doubt. But BC chose to believe Ciaran Barnes in this matter despite the fact that his central charge against her was invented, that he had not produced one quote from her in his report to substantiate the claim that she had talked about her BC interviews, and that he even got the name of the college wrong, calling it "Boston University".

Having invented the contents of her interviews with BC, Ciaran Barnes could just as easily have made up the claim that she had admitted giving the interviews, especially if the goal was to hide the real source for his article, Allison Morris' taped interview.

The existence of the BC archive was well known by that time and Morris herself had phoned me more than once in early 2010 in an effort to learn what Brendan Hughes had said in his interviews, then about to be published in Voices From The Grave. It would have been natural to link Dolours Price with BC, or have guessed that she might be an interviewee, without having definite knowledge.

Despite all this, BC decided to throw Dolours Price to the wolves. When the college eventually decided to launch a limited appeal to protect the content of other interviews subpoenaed by the PSNI, she was deliberately excluded on the grounds that she had compromised her confidentiality. Not one scintilla of evidence was provided, other than Ciaran Barnes' yellow journalism, to back up this claim.

Amidst the failure to stand by its own research project by fighting this case to the highest court in the land, the abandonment and disparagement of its researchers and research subjects and the failure to fight for academic freedom on behalf of all America's scholars, this moment was surely the lowest in BC's ignoble odyssey through the PSNI subpoenas.

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>>>>>> Analysis: Support Marian Price

----------------------------------------------------------------------- A major rally for interned republican activist Marian Price takes place this Saturday [tomorrow] in Dublin. Writing this week, Eamonn McCann said that the era when Irish republicans were imprisoned in British jails without due process is supposed to be history -- but some want to turn the clock back. (For Socialist Worker) -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Marian Price was arrested on 13 May 2011 and charged with encouraging support for an illegal organisation. The charge arose from an Easter Rising commemoration in Derry city cemetery the previous month.

On a blustery day, she had reached up and held the script from which a masked man was reading the Real IRA's "Easter Message". Three days later, Marian appeared in court in Derry where, despite strenuous prosecution objections, she was granted bail.

However, she was re-arrested as she emerged from the courthouse on the basis of a document signed the previous evening by Northern Ireland secretary of state Owen Paterson and taken to Maghaberry high-security prison.

She has since been transferred to a secure ward--armed guards, barred windows, bolted doors, constant surveillance--in a Belfast hospital. She is gravely ill. She could be held for the rest of her life.

Paterson had concocted a scheme to trump the bail decision if it went against the state. The court hearing had been made a meaningless charade. Marian's continued imprisonment reveals a similar contempt for justice and due process.

Paterson's document, reversing Marian's release from a life sentence in 1980, was based on "intelligence"--information from MI5 or MI6 which cannot be made public, on the grounds of "national security".

In Maghaberry in July, Marian was further charged with "providing property for the purposes of terrorism". The reference was to her allegedly having bought a phone which the authorities believed had subsequently been used in connection with the killing of two soldiers outside Massereene barracks in Antrim in March 2009.

Questioned

Marian had been held for two days and questioned about this allegation in November 2009 before being released without charge. No evidence unearthed in the interim was offered in court. She was again granted bail. But, again, Paterson's order took precedence.

Marian's supporters believe that the Massereene charge was designed to associate her with a notorious crime that the authorities had been unable to connect her with.

They wanted to stymie a campaign for her release which was attracting support from a wide range of people who found it difficult to see what crime had actually been committed at the Easter Commemoration.

On 10 May this year, almost exactly a year from her original arrest, the charges relating to the commemoration were thrown out at Derry court.

Told that preliminary papers were still not ready, Judge McElholm declared that every citizen was entitled to a fair trial within a reasonable period and that the prosecution hadn't met this condition.

But Marian's imprisonment was still underwritten by Paterson's signature. This was the third time a court had ordered her release, and the third time the Tory minister said no.

Marian's frail condition prevented her from travelling to Derry for the hearing. Neither was she able to walk to the video suite at Hydebank Prison where she was now being held to follow the proceedings on screen.

Visited

Since then, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, and two of the North's leading criminologists, Dr Phil Scraton of Queen's University and Dr Linda Moore of the University of Ulster, have visited Marian.

All three have called for her release, either on ground of civil rights and due process or for humanitarian reasons to do with her health.

The two academics, authors of a number of official reports into prisons in the North, concluded: "Given the concerns expressed locally and internationally regarding [her] continued detention and declining health, we urge you to release her on humanitarian grounds."

They added: "Marian Price has been imprisoned...without trial in circumstances which may amount to administrative internment and which we believe to be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights."

Paterson turned a deaf ear. Marian remains imprisoned without a release date or a date when she can apply for release.

Marian Price, then 19, was one of nine members of the Provisional IRA convicted of planting four bombs in London, including one at the Old Bailey, in March 1973. Around 180 people were injured in the attack, mainly by flying glass. One man died from a heart attack.

The bombers included Gerry Kelly, now a Sinn Fein minister at Stormont, and Price's older sister, Dolours. Convicted on two counts of planting bombs and one of conspiracy to cause explosions, they were each given two life sentences and a determinate sentence of 20 years.

Hunger

Marian was freed in 1980, suffering from tuberculosis and anorexia and weighing around five stone. She and Dolours had spent 200 days on hunger strike demanding a transfer to Northern Ireland, where Republican prisoners had political status.

They were force-fed three times a day for the last 167 of the 200 days--forcibly restrained and a tube thrust through the throat into the stomach and liquid nutrition poured down. The resultant trauma was a major factor in the anorexia which led to the 1980 pardon.

From the moment she was arrested in May last year, Marian insisted that she had been released in 1980 on the basis of a Royal Prerogative of Mercy (RPM) which Paterson didn't have authority to override. Paterson claimed that the terms of the pardon did allow his intervention.

Marian's lawyers repeatedly asked for production of the pardon so its terms could be checked. They were eventually informed that the sole copy couldn't be found, had probably been shredded and at any rate had disappeared during 2010.

It is not necessary to be cynical to suspect that the document was disappeared after Marian's detention when the authorities realised that it gave Paterson no power to put her back into prison.

After her release in 1980, Marian didn't come to prominent public notice again until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, when she emerged as one of the sharpest critics of Sinn Fein leaders who had signed up to the deal.

Her Republican credentials made her a formidable advocate. Logically enough, the Northern Ireland Office will have wanted her out of the way.

Parole

Initially, parole commissioners ordered Paterson to produce the pardon. Instead, on 16 December last, his lawyers argued that inferences could be drawn from other material from the period.

Marian's representatives countered that any decision to deprive a citizen of liberty "must be properly authorised [and] is not a matter for inference and speculation".

On 30 January, the commissioners declared: "The issue is a simple one. Did the RPM cover only the 20-year determinate sentence or did it also cover the two life sentences ... The difficulty is that the secretary of state has informed the panel that the RPM cannot be located; it has either been lost or destroyed." The panel added that losing the document was "to use as neutral a word as possible... unfortunate".

They went on to say that, "There is no contemporary material exhibited... to confirm or support [Marian's] claims concerning the scope of the RPM."

But the only piece of contemporary material which could have confirmed Marian's claim was the document which Paterson insisted his department had mislaid or destroyed. Bizarrely, the commissioners "urge[d] the secretary of state to continue the search for the RPM."

The alternative explanation, that Paterson conspired to deprive a citizen of due process and imprison her indefinitely, will have struck the commissioners, drawn from the great and good, as utterly far-fetched--rather than the most obvious and reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the facts.

When 'national security' means no evidence

The issues arising from Marian's case are not specific to Northern Ireland. In the same week that Paterson rejected the court decision to strike out the Derry charge, the coalition announced a Bill giving ministers power to order the use of secret evidence--"Closed Material Procedures"--in civil cases.

This was in response to cases arising from MI5 and MI6 involvement in the "war on terror". Ministers explained that evidence in such cases couldn't be produced in open court, for fear of endangering "national security".

Unions line up to join campaign

In April 2012, the NI Conference of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions passed by a large majority a resolution calling for Marian's release:

"The trades union movement has led opposition to political violence over the past 40 years. We have repeatedly mobilised our members in protest against atrocities, whether perpetrated by Loyalist or Republican paramilitary organisations or by state forces.

"We continue to urge the use of peaceful means only to remedy the grievances which persist in our society and which impact most damagingly on the working class communities whose interests trades unions strive to represent...

"The cause of peace is never served by the denial of justice. No good cause is served by keeping Marian Price in Maghaberry prison. We call on the secretary of state to free her now."

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This coming Saturday [September 15th], a human rights march and rally will be held in Dublin, to demand the release of Marian Price.

The march, organised by the Free Marian Price Dublin Committee, will assemble 2pm at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1, before making its way to the GPO.

Speakers at the rally will include Independent TD Thomas Pringle, Independent Dublin City Councillor Ciaran Perry and Pauline Mellon of the Justice for Marian Price Campaign. Renowned protest singer Pol Mac Adaim will also perform at the event.